


"Buried your fangs in the heart of a deep well"

by lazyroughdrafts



Series: Beast in the Headlights [2]
Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, F/F, not a sequel or a prequel, overlapping universes, second in series, where things have more to do with love than hate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 00:09:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2526743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyroughdrafts/pseuds/lazyroughdrafts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A conversation they had once. Before everything. When a kiss had to be something stolen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Buried your fangs in the heart of a deep well"

**Author's Note:**

> Don't own anything related to Elementary, zip zilch of it.
> 
> Title is from Little Red Lung's Fangs

She follows her. Watches from the shadows, from eight paces back, close on her heels.

 

Watches her sleep some nights. Follows her on failed romantic interludes. Watches as a man, she deems "as exciting as a wet dish rag", leans into those lips whose softness she cannot forget.

 

Things break on the nights that Joan does not pull away.

 

Joan had been oblivious for months. Or at least, had appeared so. Even as Moriarty observed with surgical precision, her wolf-like gaze taking stock of the minutest details. She watched her through windows into coffee shops and wine bars, trailing the tracks of Joan's morning run, from a distance behind park benches.

 

Moriarty observed, collated data, shifted puzzle pieces into place. All the while remaining unsatisfied by her conclusions.

 

The woman rang discordant in her mind. Her lips had burned her; caught her unawares. And yet the theft had been premeditated and she had been its perpetrator.

Why then was she so surprised? Why when she had been watching her so closely?

 

And she had been. Watching her close enough to magnetise skin.

 

Jamie's calculations had been almost perfect that evening. An evening punctuated with laughter and too much wine. She had deduced the outcome with frightening accuracy. Yes, Joan had smiled and smiled. Had allowed his hand to graze her bare thigh. Had looked a scandal in that form fitting one-shouldered gun metal dress. Had allowed eyes to linger on every curve.

 

But Jamie had known. When Joan was smiling, Jamie had seen teeth.

 

Joan had found her in the brownstone lying belly-flat on her bed, blond curls obscuring her eyes and flicking through an old copy of the New Yorker. Bewildered at the discovery, she'd had no time to voice her consternation. Jamie had greeted her with unrestrained enthusiasm, "Joan! How lovely to see you."  It was surreal seeing her just so. Perhaps the most dangerous woman on the planet was on her bed, shifting herself so she was sat upright and cross-legged. Her toes painted in vintage rose. And there she was. Sociopath. Murderer. Shameless flirt. Looking up at her with undisguised delight.

 

All glorious golden curls and twinkling eyes purring, "How very lovely." And then she was moving. Uncrossing her legs, swinging them over the edge of the bed. Gesturing for Joan to sit next to her like they were old friends. As if Joan hadn't been instrumental in her incarceration. As if she hadn't thought of twenty-seven different ways to end her.

 

"So no goodnight kiss?" She'd dipped her head but looked up through her lashes.

 

Joan would have laughed at this coy display. Moriarty playing demure. Joan would have. But something in her felt the huntress for what she was, stalking prey. That was what it was supposed to be, how Moriarty should have played the game. Neither of them knew then that the uncertainty was real enough. Moriarty was unaccustomed to the feeling. And alien as it was it merely snaked at her insides but did not coil to stay.

 

Joan had looked at her in that quiet way of hers. "I'd say it was none of your business but that's sort of your point, isn't it?" Jamie smirks and shrugs a shoulder as Joan lowers herself, sits too close. That's how it had been. She had been the one to sit hip to hip. Thereafter there would be no need to say that she was not afraid. Not intimidated. She was the one to sit way too close. Jamie had invaded her space and so she had invaded hers.

 

 This Dr. Watson was something altogether unexpected. Both the eye and the storm.

 

There was a clever quip somewhere on the edge of Jamie's tongue. Something to unsettle her. And maybe, if she would allow the revelation, Jamie would have understood that this proximity was more than a little unsettling. Joan in her gun metal dress. With her bare thigh pressed against hers. Joan who perhaps knew she was being followed all along. Joan who perhaps had smiled far too brightly and laughed more readily just for her, knowing she'd be watching from the shadows.

 

Maybe.

 

The theft when it happened, this is how it happened:

There is more than one way to glean the answer. Jamie turns and dives to capture Joan's lips. Her thumb pressed on her neck, fingers gently cupping her head. She licks at her top lip before biting down slowly, then pressing in harder. Kissing her slowly as Joan parts her lips. Jamie hears her sigh before she pulls away. Pulls away entirely to stand.

"You have your answer." Joan kicks off her heels and turns away unzipping her dress. "You should leave now."  She doesn't even glance back as she heads to the shower.

 

Jamie only has more questions. But now she knows that Joan's lips are impossibly soft. And that they burn.

 

 

 ...........

 

Yes, Jamie has been watching her.

 

When she has seen enough, she uses the front door. She makes her way to the brownstone just as Sherlock is on his way out. There is something peculiar in Moriarty's gaze that bears down on him so mercilessly that he practically stutters, "Why are you here?" He wanted to say something more forceful, to demand that she leave. He stutters instead and the faintest of rouge blushes tints his face. He is appalled with himself as his skin warms at the ears. A sensation that causes him to scrunch his face in a pained, pointed expression.

 

She grins like a Cheshire Cat, "Oh wouldn't you like to know?" He frowns as she leans in to kiss his cheek, "I just want a moment alone with her."

She smirks suggestively as she steps back. Disgust and jealousy war on his countenance long enough that she notices. "Green doesn't suit you darling." She clucks as she makes her way past him. He steps aside instinctively but feels the fool for having done so. The ghost of a woman he used to know still blisters underneath his skin.

 

Sherlock follows her inside.

He is mesmerised by the freckles peeking from her back like stray constellations. He used to know it well, the star map on this woman's bare skin. He tries not to think about that as old anger claws him afresh. "She's not a plaything." His ire grows as he recollects himself. As he finds his feet after being swept up in her unnerving presence and heady perfume. She doesn't smell like Irene. "She's not for you to trifle with. I won't have it."

 

She tilts her head and purses her lips watching him almost curiously. The faintest wisp of a smile teasing at her mouth. "No, she is not."

 

And maybe just then, if Joan hadn't creeped up on them mug in hand Jamie would have thought better of this. Of grasping for this. Maybe, but Joan is standing there in black leggings and an oversized cowl-neck. With her brows slightly raised at their impromptu visitor, swallowed whole by her sweater, she looks tinier and somehow more fragile than what Jamie is used to seeing. Her eyes rest on her left arm, a splinted wrist. _When did that happen?_   How has she missed this? Moriarty may be well-schooled in wearing an impenetrable mask of impassivity, but the glacial blue of her eyes thaws temporarily as she contemplates Joan's injured wrist. Temporal and fleeting. Ice hardens in her gaze once again. But it is already too late; she does not know how late. Not for another three months.

 

"You may leave us now," Jamie smiles into the command she issues Sherlock. He doesn't move until  Joan nods that it's okay, until she reassures him that he can leave.

 

"Well?" Joan cocks her head and Jamie moves. Jamie lunges forward to burn her lips again.

It burns even more when Joan pulls away.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The next installment will be on trauma and the ways Jamie can break. Because really, who knew that was even possible?


End file.
